How has your process for doing academic research changed since the beginning of the semester?

Since the beginning of the semester, my process for doing academic research has greatly changed. At first, I only focused on the specifics of my research topic by searching the key words like “social events” and “college environment”. I soon realized that I was not going to be able to find research that related directly to my topic and broadened my search. I did this by searching more broad terms such as “student attitudes”. I also only looked at the title of the source, instead of reading more about the research. I now read the article to see if the research will help with my own. I also have begun to write a small summary about the research so I can easily go back and re-read what the research was about and the findings.

Describe your process for evaluating and selecting sources for your research assignments. How did you decide which sources to use and which not to use? Did you add or change sources for your final assignment after turning in your annotated bibliography? If so, please explain why.

For evaluating and selecting sources for my research assignments, I carefully searched for sources that would pertain to my research topic. I also looked at the publication date and where the research was conducted to ensure that they were relevant to my research. I looked at the title of the research and read further about it by reading the abstract. From there, I determined if I would set the research aside as a potential source. After finding a reasonable number of potential sources, I read more of each source to make sure it pertained to my research topic. I decided which sources to use by similarity of the research conducted, to my research topic. If a source had research that would help my research topic or was specifically related to it, I used the source. After turning in my annotated bibliography, I did not add or change any of my sources that were used in my final assignment.

What challenges did you encounter when doing research for your assignments in this class? What strategies did you use to overcome them?

A challenge that I encountered when doing research for my assignments was finding specific research on my topic. I was struggling because the search terms I was using were not producing related research sources.  I soon learned to broaden my search and I did this by opening my search to similar topics to mine. To accomplish and overcome this challenge, I began searching terms that were similar to my research, like “sense of belonging”, “social support” and “reasons for why students leave college”. This produced an abundant amount of research that could be useful for my research.

Have your attitudes and perceptions (confidence level) about doing research changed over the course of the semester?

When I heard that I would be conducting research for a research project, I was very nervous. I had conducted research before in previous classes, but I knew that it was going to be a different type of research. I was not confident that I would be able to conduct research well. As the research progressed, I learned how to properly research sources and conduct research, which helped me gain confidence in my abilities to do research. After doing research for my project, I now feel better about doing research. Separating the different pieces of the research project helped me to focus on certain aspects of the research so that I was not overwhelmed with the overall research.

Think about the research you’ve done this semester, and describe what you think it means to “Think Like a Researcher?”

“Thinking Like a Researcher” means to look at every aspect of the research. This includes the research topic, the sample, the variables, and participants. Researchers have to think about what they want to study and from there, they have to decide what their variables are and how to select their participants. Researchers have to keep their participants confidentiality as well. They also have to think about the best way to conduct their research like if they want to use a questionnaire or interview participants. Overall, researchers have many things to think about when deciding to conduct research and during the study.